


caught in a street fight (you need a lifeline)

by petasos



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Alternate Universe - Human, Alternate Universe - Superheroes/Superpowers, F/F, Implied/Referenced Character Death, John Egbert and Jane Crocker are Siblings, Minor Jade Harley/Dave Strider, Minor Rose Lalonde/Kanaya Maryam, Multi, Rose Lalonde and Dave Strider are Twins, Trans Female John Egbert, Trans Vriska Serket
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-12-28
Updated: 2019-12-28
Packaged: 2021-02-26 01:08:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,005
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21994996
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/petasos/pseuds/petasos
Summary: JUNE EGBERT - the heroine known as WINDRESS - is on the trail of vigilantes SPIDERBITE and JUSTICAR.Little does she know that this is about to change her life, and possibly not for the better.Little does she ALSO know that sometimes, the people you're hunting down happen to be people you already know.
Relationships: June Egbert/Vriska Serket/Terezi Pyrope
Comments: 12
Kudos: 20
Collections: Polyswap Winter Promptfest - Dawn Edition





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [pesterquests](https://archiveofourown.org/users/pesterquests/gifts).
  * In response to a prompt by [pesterquests](https://archiveofourown.org/users/pesterquests/pseuds/pesterquests) in the [Polyswap_Winter_Promptfest_Dawn_2019](https://archiveofourown.org/collections/Polyswap_Winter_Promptfest_Dawn_2019) collection. 



> > **Prompt:** It wouldn't let me tag June because ao3 sucks but.... junevrisrezi in some sort of magical girl/supervillain and superhero au would be SO good
> 
> Hi!! I'm gonna upload this as I write it (and post-editing obv) so it will be multi-chaptered 'cause... yeet. ALSO TITLE FROM street fight by smallpools!! I HOPE YOU ENJOY THIS EVEN A LITTLE 

The wind in your face, cape billowing out behind you, the stars twinkling against the city skyline as you look out across Skaia City. Your name is JUNE EGBERT, but the people of Skaia City know you as WINDRESS, their guardian and protector. Fierce. Beloved. One fourth of the BETA FOUR - well, _formerly_ , anyways. Now it’s three of them and one of you, and you haven’t talked to them in five months. Not since you disappeared.

That, however, is exposition. Right now, you’re tracking down two pretty important people, two people who have made living in Skaia City hell for some: SPIDERBITE, vigilante and unregistered super, and her partner in crime, JUSTICAR. Those two have made your life hell the past six weeks, and there’s no way in hell you’re letting them get away with continuing this. They broke into CrockerCorp three days ago, and you’ve been following their trail ever since.

(Little do you know that this decision is going to change your life forever.)

See, you were smart: you got wind (ha ha, joke) of their plans, and popped a tracker on the tech they stole. Your half sister, JANE CROCKER (aka the heroine known as RENEWAL), the heiress to CrockerCorp, helped you out by designing it. And BY GOD, are you not going to let them get away with this.

“ _Hey, June_ ,” goes the earpiece in your ear, and the Beta Four’s favorite hacker civilian’s voice rings through your ear. SOLLUX CAPTOR, genius and ex-super (it’s a long story as to how he lost his powers, a story for another time.) “ _Dargason Street. Getting something from there. Potential Felt trouble._ ”

“Have someone else handle it tonight, it’s Dave and Jade’s night,” you say, surveying the holographic plans popping out of your wristwatch like something from a sci-fi film. “And dear god, Sol, don’t tell them you’re in contact with me.”

You hear him laugh, garbled and static, on the other side, before he clicks off, and the dot on those plans - shaped like a C, for Crocker - lights up. _There we go_ , you think, and launch off the rooftop, refusing to accept the fact that you looked like a brooding vigilante just sitting up there.

Which, you suppose, you sort of are now.

* * *

IRONICALLY, this dot leads you to Lomat Avenue. Lomat’s on the richer side of town - Jane lived there for a good year after your dad and Jane’s mom got divorced. Jane’s younger than you by three years - twenty-one to your twenty-four, even if you don’t feel twenty-four anymore. Not since you left the group. Not since you started transitioning. It’s been five months, and your hair’s growing out, curling at the tips. Jane thinks it’s cute, and you think it’s annoying, and just wish that you could use more than hairpins to keep it out of your face. At least they come in nice colors.

You feel a lot younger. Like you’re finally getting your childhood.

You take a good fifteen minutes to survey this tiny house, just in case. People in the houses on either side move and talk and barbeque in the backyard (it’s too late for that, so you don’t understand, honestly.) But this one seems empty. You don’t have Rose’s foresight to check for traps, but this is suburbia. You doubt Spiderbite and Justicar had the brilliant idea to make sure nobody could get in.

You pull down your night vision goggles (the house this dot’s coming from is dark inside) and pretty much phase through the wall, turning into air and appearing on the other side of the door. No alarms, so your hunch was right.

The house is… a letdown, honestly. It looks like two people live here, which makes sense. The couch has a blanket on it, and there’s cat hair on the rug. You’re able to move around anything that could potentially get disturbed just via turning to wind, moving right over or around it.

Then you hear voices. Two of them. Familiar.

“- ‘rezi, this isn’t a good idea -”

“- you gotta _listen_ to me! I -”

“- eventually they’re going to come for us! You know I’m right, and you know that the Beta Four are GOING to figure out this little scheme!”

You stop.

“ _Meow!_ ”

Oops.

A cat’s looking up at you, and you freeze like a deer in the headlights, wide-eyed and staring down at this fluffy Persian cat who’s just meowing up at you.

“ _Did you hear that?_ ” hisses one of the women, and then there’s complete silence. “Marquise, come here.”

 _Big fucking oops_.


	2. Chapter 2

PICTURE THIS: you’re inside someone’s home. It’s not your house. They don’t know you’re there. Not only that, but they’re vigilantes that you’re currently hunting down and tracking. You tracked them here, you’re eavesdropping and then… their cat finds you.

This cat, apparently named MARQUISE, is staring up at you with big eyes (with the nightvision goggles, you can’t tell color, but you presume brown), head tilted. Feet are shuffling in the background, and you’re frozen in place, your own eyes just as big as that cat’s. It’s when you see the glint of something, catching your goggles, and you disappear into nothingness within a second.

The thing about your powers is that when you use them, you feel like nothing. You dissipate into a thousand tiny molecules, if not more, right into the air, waiting to reform. It takes focus. It takes keeping your head straight, your body loose and relaxed, because if you tense up, you’ll reform. This lets you go through walls. This lets you control yourself in a way other people can’t. And that, with your trusty hammer, are your WEAPONS OF CHOICE on the battlefield that is life.

Okay, that’s super dumb.

And you’re not thinking that. Your mind’s blank. Even when the woman rounds the corner and you’re faced with your ex-girlfriend, TEREZI PYROPE. Terezi’s short, chubby, and waving her cane around to get her bearings.

Whew.

She can’t see you. Even if you weren’t invisible due to currently being one with the air.

Why the hell is she here? Does she live here?

Suddenly, things click into place: she’s short and chubby, like Justicar. She has the same flippy dark brown hair. If she wore a domino mask and teal-and-red with a sword, she’d be the splitting image. Which means... 

Your ex-girlfriend is the person you’ve been hunting down.

Which also means…

“Terezi? What the hell was that?”

VRISKA SERKET. Of course.

She pokes her head around the corner, and you see Vriska’s long ink-black curls, pulled into a ponytail like she almost always does. She’s the reason you started having doubts you were cis. She’s the reason you realized you were a trans woman… and bi. And here she is. You see the web tattoo on her left arm, and you know what this is.

She’s Spiderbite.

Terezi’s Justicar.

Your ex-girlfriend and your ex-best friend are the two people you’ve been hunting down for the past six weeks, and this fact jolts you right out of emptiness (as does the sudden light when she flicks it on), and lands you right on the table, crashing into their living room and revealing yourself without a second thought.

There’s absolutely no hesitation before Terezi and Vriska lunge at you - Terezi pulls the top off her cane, pointing a sword at you, and Vriska’s… literally just pulling you up with her hands, her eyes narrowed.

“I knew you’d come for us,” she hisses, and rips off your mask.

You always expected something like that to go dramatically. Instead, Vriska just blinks at you for a good moment or two, one eyebrow raised quizzically, giving you just enough time and momentum to swing your legs out, knocking her onto her ass. Terezi slices through your shirt, hitting the bulletproof vest, and you kick at her too, sending her flying into the couch, and you’re on your feet within a second, pulling your hammer out from your utility belt, pulling the end to make it longer.

“You don’t want to do this,” Vriska growls, stumbling to her feet. Her hands light up, dice between each finger. Yup. Definitely Spiderbite. She tosses them at you, and you barely manage to flicker over towards the couch in time, grabbing Terezi and holding her up while the air where you were a second ago explodes into pure light. Vriska hisses. “Let go of her!”

“So, you’re Spiderbite and Justicar?” you grumble. “Just my luck.”

“No,” Vriska says, “just _my_ luck,” and she throws herself at you, knocking the couch over between your combined weight. You land, sprawled across the cat-fur-covered rug, sneezing and struggling to get out from under her. Terezi lays next to you, visibly dazed, and Vriska straddles you, a knife to your throat. “John Egbert. What a surprise. I didn’t know you were a super.”

“You never asked.”

“Oh my god,” says Terezi, “just kill him already!”

“ _Her_ ,” you hiss.

“Sorry. Kill her already. We can bury her in the backyard. Not like anyone will notice she’s gone for a few more days.”

You snicker at that. “Renewal knows I’m here,” and another thought pops to mind, “and so do the rest of the Beta Four, they’ll be here any minute. You’ve got no idea what you’re up against, Vriska.”

(Okay, it’s weird having gone to school with this woman. Especially considering she has a knife to your throat.)

Vriska sighs, and pulls the knife away, and you knee her right between the thighs, knocking her onto her side and dissapaiting into thin air. You reappear on the other side of the room, right on the verge of laughing your ass off at the fact that it’s Vriska and Terezi of all people. You had no idea they were supers, let alone that it was them pulling this shit.

“Why steal from CrockerCorp?” you ask, holding your hammer in both hands.

Vriska glares at you, watery-eyed from the knee to her groin. “Why the hell should we tell you?”

“Because you’re going to jail either way!”

“Vris,” says Terezi, and she’s on her feet, putting her cane back together (how she held onto it and didn’t stab herself, you have no idea.) “Just tell her. She’ll understand when you do.”

“ _Because_ ,” says Vriska, sighing. “That tech? It’s part of a bomb being built by CrockerCorp. Just like all the other shit we’ve stolen. Bethany Crocker? Your sister’s grandma? She’s _actually_ The Condesce… and we have proof.”

You almost drop your hammer. “That’s _impossible_.”

It’s absolutely impossible, because THE CONDESCE - the greatest supervillain(ess) in all of history - has been dead for fifteen years. You would know, because Dave’s uncle and Rose’s aunt killed her, together, and died in the fight, their identities revealed to the world. The fact that famous director DANIEL STRIDER and famous author ROSALBA LALONDE were the dynamic duo known only as THE KNIGHT and THE SEER… had surprised a lot of people. Especially since Rose and Dave almost perfectly inherited their powers. Almost.

But The Condesce died that day. She’d _died_. Her body exhumed and buried. This wasn’t a comic book, this was life, and she’d died - and that was probably the most surprising part of all. Because _nobody_ expected that.

Yet... CrockerCorp had opened up a few months later…

“You have _proof_?”

“Yes! And we tried to go to the police, but they’re fucking corrupt, John - ugh, I can’t call you that, it’s probably your deadname. Windress. There we go.” Vriska rolls her eyes behind her catseye glasses, stepping towards you. “I have proof, because of _this_.” And she pulls her phone out of her pocket, slides it to unlock, and flips through for a moment, before pulling out… a picture of DNA results. “The Condesce’s DNA… against Bethany Crocker’s. Terezi suspected… but…”

“I didn’t suspect,” groans Terezi, “I Saw it.”

Foresight, you suppose. Just like Rose. “ _How_? This isn’t -”

“Possible? I know. That’s why we’ve been stealing this shit, _because she’s going to blow up Skaia City._ ”


End file.
